Business Desk :
Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen has sought a stronger role from the heads of Bangladesh Missions abroad to boost trade and investment, and improve the quality of services that the missions offer to expatriates.
He also alerted the heads of missions about the Prime Minister’s zero-tolerance policy to corruption and advised them to avoid any incident that may harm the reputation of the respective mission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bangladesh as a whole.
“You all know our prime minister’s policy is zero tolerance to corruption. I don’t want to see anything in our missions abroad that harm our reputation. We don’t want to hear any such thing. You remain alert on that front,” Momen conveyed the strong message to Bangladesh Missions head abroad seeking their strong position against corruption, reports UNB.
The Foreign Minister came up with a slew of suggestions during his recent virtual interactions with the Ambassadors and High Commissioners of Bangladesh outlining the course of actions in the New Year – 2022 to ensure quality services without compromising with honesty and sincerity.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam, Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen, Secretary (East) Mashfee Binte Shams and Secretary (Maritime Affairs Unit) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Rear Admiral (retd) Khurshed Alam also joined the interactions.
In the extensive interactions, Momen said steps must be taken to improve the quality of services, increase investment flow to Bangladesh and boost Bangladesh’s trade with the partner countries.
“We need to find innovative ways to do that. If you can do it, it’ll be helpful to achieve our goals. This is something I think I would expect from you,” he told Bangladesh envoys abroad.
Talking about the presence of a vicious circle of “brokers” around some of the missions in the Middle East, Malaysia and Italy, the foreign minister suggested the Bangladesh envoys in those countries act decisively against those strong brokers. “If you’re sincere and honest, we can tell you that we’ll give you all required support from the Ministry,” he said, hoping that they can get rid of the brokers providing modern technology-based services to the service seekers.
Momen suggested the envoys interact frequently with the Bangladesh community abroad — at least once in every 15 days — and help them know about the services that can be availed of using technology-based tools.
“I want to see each of our missions abroad to work as a team taking all the wings and maintaining coordination. We must work as a unit. We’ve to work as a team,” he said.
Momen said he receives some tiny allegations from time to time but the missions can find out ways easily to address those issues. “We want to see that things are done with utmost sincerity.”
